Andy "Krazy" Glew is a computer architect, a long time poster on comp.arch ... and an evangelist of collaboration tools such as wikis, calendars, blogs, etc. Plus an occasional commentator on politics, taxes, and policy. Particularly the politics of multi-ethnic societies such as Quebec, my birthplace.

The content of this blog is my personal opinion. It is not that of my employer. See Disclaimer.

Photo credit: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dcxddbtr_23cg5thdfj

Disclaimer

The content of this blog is my personal opinion only. Although I am an employee - currently of Nvidia, in the past of other companies such as Iagination Technologies, MIPS, Intellectual Ventures, Intel, AMD, Motorola, and Gould - I reveal this only so that the reader may account for any possible bias I may have towards my employer's products. The statements I make here in no way represent my employer's position, nor am I authorized to speak on behalf of my employer. In fact, this posting may not even represent my personal opinion, since occasionally I play devil's advocate.

See http://docs.google.com/View?id=dcxddbtr_23cg5thdfj for photo credits.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Austin Airport Blog

I’m very happy with Southwest Airlines on this trip. Still cattle car boarding, but the legroom is better than any airline (United, American, Continental, Delta, Northwest) that I have flown recently. My shoulders are still wider than the seats, but that’s true of any airline below first class. (And I never travel first class.)

Here’s a nice touch: by Southwest’s gates in Austin’s Bergstrom airport, they have quite a few (8 that I can see) cabinets with power outlets besides unusually comfortable chairs. They even have USB, to charge up your phone. This is a welcome change from the usual airport “socket hunt”, having to walk all around to find an outlet, often far distant from your gate and requiring you to sit on the floor.

--

Peeve: pay internet.

At the Hilton in Austin: bad enough that I was paying twice what I should have, but that I had to pay 14$/day for Internet in my room as well? Or, rather, I did not pay, except two nights. The conference had free wireless, but with 150 slots for more than 500 people it was usually unavailable. Trouble is, my coworkers expect me to be connected. Now, here I am at the Austin airport, reluctant to pay for Boingo hotspot access. If I did pay, I could have my expense report (which must be completed online via a web app) before I got home. But I won’t pay, so even that trivial task piles up. If I were still at my hotel room I would have the last few of my second 24 hours. It’s not so much the paying for Internet, as the paying for it repeatedly because I am moving around. I swear I will get a data plan for my phone…

--

My new laptop computer has no privacy screen. That has a chilling effect. Must order one. I wonder why my company’s IT department doesn’t automatically provide one. I suppose that I should have ordered one as soon as I got my machine.

The chilling effect: so much for reading email at the conference, when it is visible to all behind me. I wanted to use the free internet at the conference, rather than the pay internet in my room. So much for reading ion the plane. I was willing to risk blogging, but then a few calendar reminders popped up.